Despite numerous historical works devoted to studying the importance of the nineteenth century’s splendid religious renaissance, it is still not well understood. An overall view highlighting the interaction between all participating movements is especially lacking. Indeed, a common background guided these various apostolates.
Historians of some countries have managed to provide a reasonable idea of the various groups. They describe the movements that arose in them and clarify their immediate goals. These were related to the problems peculiar to each people and varied according to local circumstances. However, little research has been done about the interrelations between these movements, the ideas for which they fought, and the common ground that sometimes brought them together.
The most significant gaps concern this religious revival’s initial phase before, during and immediately after the French Revolution and Napoleon’s empire. These groups and movements are not well understood, even those on the national level.
The best starting point may be France. Understanding the resistance against the bloody persecutions of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s tyranny is particularly crucial. Here, we see the heroic Catholics consecrated themselves to serve the Church. True believers were obliged to hide and organize secretly to defend the Catholic cause. During those difficult times, they were threatened from all sides.
Catholics were wary about the Restoration after’s fall. As Joseph de Maistre said, it re-established everything but restored nothing. That uncertainty forced devout Catholics to keep many of their activities secret. Hence, there are few written reports, and often, even these are encrypted. This lack of documentation makes it difficult to have adequate knowledge of their apostolates.
Little by little, with intelligence, wit and patience, historians are lifting the veil off this confusing period. We are pleased to see how strong the Catholic movement was at that time. Our Holy Faith’s survival in this revolutionary stage was remarkable. It enabled Catholics to resist all kinds of pressure from a hostile environment and fight valiantly to re-establish the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ in society.
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Some years ago, Guillaume Bertier de Sauvigny researched the archives of one of his ancestors, Count Ferdinand de Bertier de Sauvigny (1781-1864). There, he discovered the Chevaliers de la Foi (Knights of the Faith), a secret chivalric order created during the Napoleonic Empire. This society reached the height of its influence during the Restoration in 1815. This discovery allowed its author to explain the enigma of the Congregation, which had perplexed historians, completely renewing the history of this critical and interesting period. (See G. Bertier de Sauvigny, Le Comte Ferdinand de Bertier et l’énigme de la Congrégation—Les Presses Continentales,1948.)
A similar organization in Italy took the name Amicizie, the plural of amicizia—the Italian word for friendship. These associations spread throughout Europe thanks to the untiring zeal of Father Joseph von Diessbach, who founded the first of them, Amicizia Cristiana, in Turin around 1780, a few years before the French Revolution.
Father Joseph von Diessbach was a Swiss Protestant ex-officer who had served in the Turin garrison. He converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit. Father von Diessbach’s faithfulness to the spirit of Saint Ignatius marked all of his apostolic works, even when he was forced to become a secular (diocesan) priest due to Pope Clement XIV’s dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773. He was a conscious opponent of the Revolution. In an attempt to halt its course, he conceived the idea of founding the Amicizie, associations to strengthen their members in the Faith. They combatted evil literature then infiltrating aristocratic and cultured circles. Further, they denounced the errors that Jansenism and Gallicanism continued to propagate despite the condemnations they incurred.
Unfortunately, Father Diessabch lacked a precise concept of the Revolution and did not characterize its essence, as Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira did in his essay Revolution and Counter-Revolution. Nonetheless, he was aware of the existence of a plan to destroy Catholic civilization. He identified some of the primary means used to achieve this goal. The Amicizie’s raison d’être was to fight against that plan. Thus, while Father Diessbach did not see the Revolution with complete clarity, he was its genuine enemy.
In Turin, Father Diessbach met two priests who consecrated themselves entirely to this apostolate and can be considered co-founders of the Amicizie. They were Father Luigi Virginio and Father Pio Brunone Lanteri.
Counting on such dedicated collaborators, in 1782, Diessbach left the Turin Amicizia in their care and went to Vienna. There, his ideals found a good reception among the young. Baron Joseph von Penkler placed his castle and fortune at the former Jesuit’s disposal, and an Austrian Amicizia soon developed. From it developed the literary movement known (somewhat inappropriately) as Austrian religious pre-Romanticism.
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Among this Amicizia’s members was the apostle of Vienna, Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer. Saint Clement used it as a model for the associations he founded in Austria and Poland during his prodigious apostolate. At his death, Saint Clement asked to be buried at Maria Enzersdorf, the cemetery of Baron Penkler’s castle. In this holy ground lie the bodies of Father Diessbach, his confessor Father Franz Schmidt, and several other companions of the Austrian Amicizia.
In 1786, Father Luigi Virginio went to Paris, where, according to Father Diessbach’s plans, he was to establish the Amicizia destined to be the guide for all others. The French Revolution prevented his carrying out this project. However, while staying at the Foreign Missions Seminary, a bastion of Catholic resistance, he met Father Pierre Joseph Picot de la Clorivière. Father de la Clorivière would later restore the Society of Jesus in France. His nephew was the famous Chouan, Joseph Picot de Limoëlan.
Fathers de la Clorivière and Virginio founded the Society of the Heart of Jesus in 1790, which became one of the great pillars of the Catholic apostolate in those troubled times. Father Virginio’s departure from France was bumpy, and the Amicizie lost contact with him for a long time. For a time, his brothers even thought he had been a victim of the Terror. His return to Vienna was first revealed in an excerpt from a letter from Count Jean Cosme Lanthiery to St. Clement Mary Hofbauer. It was impressive for its simplicity: “Here we have been consoled by Father Virginio’s arrival; he is a zealous servant of God” (p. 173). Father Virginio helped Father Diessbach in Vienna, stayed there until his death, and replaced him after he died.
In Italy, the Servant of God Pio Brunone Lanteri was the soul of the Amicizie. His apostolate spread from Turin to Florence, Milan, and several other cities. He fought for the protection of the youth. He also fought against Jansenism by promoting the doctrine of Saint. Alphonsus Maria Liguori. He also served the Church in other necessary fields. With the fall of Napoleon and the consequent Restoration of the Savoys, the first Amicizia of Turin was transformed into a new association called Amicizia Cattolica. Its members included Count Joseph de Maistre. Another member, Marquis Cesare Taparelli d’Azeglio, was one of the leading Catholic journalists of the nineteenth century. Marquis d’Azeglio was a constant collaborator of Father Lanteri from the time of Amicizia Cristiana’s establishment and a columnist for L’Amico d’Italia, the newspaper he founded.
Father Lanteri did not limit his beneficent action to the Amicizie. With the theologian Father Luigi Guala, he collaborated to create Turin’s “Convitto Ecclesiastico,” where Saint John Bosco later began his apostolic life. Father Lanteri also founded a religious congregation, the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, which propagates the spirit of the Servant of God in Italy, Argentina, Brazil and several other countries to this day.
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In 1962, Father Candido Bona, IMC, wrote Le Amicizie, with the suggestive subtitle, Società segrete e rinascità religiosa [Secret Societies and Religious Revival]. It studies the famous Amicizie, which rendered the most outstanding services to the Church.
Father Bona’s excellent book gives us a good picture of the life of the various Amicizie, especially in Italy. He was a highly resourceful historian and a stellar writer. We immensely enjoyed his study of these associations, his very well-conducted reconstitution of Father Virginio’s trip to Paris, and his clarification of the circumstances that led to the closing of Amicizia Cattolica during the reign of Charles Felix of Sardinia. His very well-documented work reveals many hitherto unknown peculiarities of the Amicizie.
We want to highlight the author’s extensive research of the life of Father Joseph Diessbach, a very little-known figure until today. This son of Saint Ignatius of Loyola is the creator and soul of all this fruitful apostolic activity that spread throughout Europe. Through an in-depth study of the documents he obtained and a careful analysis of Diessbach’s writings, Father Candido Bona succeeded in reconstructing the true image of this unjustly forgotten churchman. Examining the situation of the Church in his time and seeing the real needs of the Catholic cause, Father Joseph von Diessbach, a born organizer, adopted an overall plan for his apostolate. That is the secret of his successful endeavors.
Father Bona reproduces the Suite des loix de l’Amitié Chrétienne, which he obtained from the Vatican Secret Archives, from the papers of the Savoy Nunciature. This document sets out the reasons that led Father Diessbach to devise the Amicizie; its publication lets us see his concept of the Revolution.
Father Bona writes that the fight against the Catholic Church became more effective because of the synergy among heretical sects over the last few centuries and the impiety generated by their principles. Errors and vices have corrupted Europe ever since. The young nobility and wealthy people of all conditions were its culpable victims. In some countries, the ill effects spread to ordinary people. Consequently, this onslaught extinguishes the Faith in thousands of depraved hearts. The mentality now reigning in Europe outrages Heaven, corrupts the earth, and populates hell. Even good people have relaxed their early fervor and are discouraged by seeing so much disorder.
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However, the holy truths of salvation have not lost their force. God’s word has not grown old. It still overthrows the cedars of Lebanon and makes springs of living water gush out of the aridest rocks. We can support tempted people in their good resolutions. We can warn well-intentioned but inexperienced people against being seduced. We can hasten the conversion of people who live unruly lives but are willing to reconcile with God. All men are not equally perverted by the licentiousness of mind and heart. Many can amend if charitable people introduce them to us in good time. They are urged alternately by passions and conscience, doubt and repentance. Even those with deeply rooted evils sometimes have intervals when they are willing to listen to the voice of the Gospel (see p. 490).
Father Bona’s comments on excerpts from another document, Rôle de l’A.C. [Amicizia Cristiana] pendant la contrerévolution, by an anonymous disciple of Diessbach, also arouse the reader’s curiosity. It is a pity that this second booklet has not been quoted in its entirety. It would be a valuable complement to study Father Diessbach’s ideas about the Revolution. One can judge its importance from this excerpt:
“Therefore, one must distinguish between two revolutions: [an internal] one in people’s minds and maxims and an external one. The latter is the necessary consequence of the former. When the former is destroyed, the latter no longer occurs, and vice versa. While one is very advanced everywhere, almost universally, the other is just beginning. Somehow, the fate of all countries is connected with that of France, and what is said of the Revolution in France is of common interest to all countries. (p. 189).”
This quotation shows that Joseph von Diessbach’s vision was not as explicit and clear as that presented by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. Indeed, the Revolution in man’s tendencies acts much more profoundly. However, in this sketchy but essentially excellent concept, Father Diessbach reaped magnificent fruits that fully demonstrate the fragility of the revolutionary process.
Fr. Candido Bona’s book also makes it clear that the various Amicizie were connected among themselves. As the author shows well, there was an organized correspondence service among them. However, there is no doubt that they also worked with the Knights of the Faith. It is no coincidence that one of the Congregation’s works is the Societé des bons livres, presided at first by Duke Mathieu de Montmorency. That organization intended to promote the dissemination and reading of good books—a primary purpose of the Amicizie.
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Fr. Bona’s book contains another curious detail. In his memoirs, Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca (1756-1844) recounts that he was expected to join the court of Pius VII, whom Napoleon had just freed. In several towns along the route from the fortress of Fenestrelle, where he himself had been imprisoned, to Fontainebleau. Many of those waiting for him belonged to the Amicizie, and others to Knights of the Faith. This trip was made under special conditions. Many people hoped that Cardinal Pacca would succeed in getting the Pope to retract the 1814 “concordat” with Napoleon. Therefore, it is natural to suppose that both organizations were acting in concert to this end. While these and other known facts do not suffice to demonstrate a closer connection between Amicizie and the Knights of the Faith, they do provoke the desire for a more detailed study of their mutual relations. Everything indicates this would be a mine of discoveries that would yield a more precise knowledge of this most exciting period in the history of the Church.
Because of its scientific value and enormous contribution to these studies, Fr. Candido Bona’s book is fundamental for anyone wishing to learn about these delicate and not yet fully explored subjects.
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